Final answer:
Cognitive psychology, which became prominent during the cognitive revolution, centers on understanding human thought and knowledge, including mental processes like thinking, memory, and problem-solving.
Step-by-step explanation:
The central emphasis of the cognitive approach in psychology is on human thought and knowledge. This branch of psychology is primarily concerned with understanding how people think, perceive, remember, and learn. Cognitive psychology emerged during the cognitive revolution in the 1950s and 1960s as a reaction to behaviorist psychology, which focused only on observable behaviors without considering mental processes.
Cognitive psychology encompasses a variety of cognitive processes, such as thinking, memory, problem-solving, and language, each playing a key role in how we handle information and respond to the environment. It highlights the importance of internal mental states and the processes behind actions and behaviors as opposed to just the behaviors themselves. Ulric Neisser's publication of "Cognitive Psychology" in 1967 marked a significant point in the establishment of this field as a central part of psychological science.